ABSTRACT
Burners for industrial and utility boilers form a large class of combustion devices designed to efficiently con vert the chemical energy of the fuel into heat within the space provided by a boiler radiant section that is also referred to as the furnace. Further heat absorption occurs in the convection section. The combination of the radiant section and convection section substantially defines the boiler. Most modern boilers with burners as
a specific part of the system were developed predomi nantly over the last century, whereas earlier boilers were firing fuels such as coal or wood on a grate placed under the steam-and water-carrying tubes in an enclosed space with some rudim entary means of combustion process intensification. The best legendary book on boil ers with over 40 editions is published by the Babcock & Wilcox Company and is considered a bible for the boiler industry.1 This book gives an excellent overview of boil ers with an emphasis on utility boilers, but goes very lit tle into the more specific field of burners and especially
the modern gas-and oil-fired burners that are a focus of this chapter. Another very diverse book on the sub ject of industrial combustion published in 2001 gives a good overview of combustion technologies for boilers at that time.2
